And the winners are…

There was a record entry to this year’s Ulster Grocer Marketing Awards and the judging panel had a particularly difficult morning at the Wellington Park Hotel in Belfast when they met to decide on winners in each of the six categories.

Some of Northern Ireland’s most successful and innovative food producers were represented among the ranks of those vying for recognition in this, the 22nd annual Ulster Grocer awards event.

There could only be a single winner in each category, however, and after much deliberation, the judges were able to agree the best entries.
And here they are…

Best Corporate Social Responsibility initiative or charity partnership.

The winner in this category was Musgrave Retail Partners NI, who gained recognition for the marketing that supported its long-standing tie-up with local charity, Action Cancer.

The Action Again Cancer Campaign is now in its ninth year. Since 2001, Musgrave’s SuperValu brand and the retail partners have supported Action Cancer’s mobile services and for seven years, its Centra retailers have backed the charity’s health promotion programme for young people – health Action.

Together, the two programmes, under the ‘Action Against Cancer’ banner, produce a substantial and measurable impact on cancer detection and prevention.

The project entails significant investment of financial, human and in-kind resources from both the Supervalu and Centra brands and involves retailers, their staff and staff at Musgrave’s central office.

With Centra’s support, Action Cancer has been able to deliver healthy lifestyle messages to more than 250,000 young people at schools across Northern Ireland – 40,000 in 2009. SuperValu’s support of Action Cancer’s Big Bus mobile has helped bring life-saving detection services to thousands of people.

The judges described Musgrave’s entry as “an excellent submission for a very worthy cause”. They paid tribute to the large amount of funding that the brand had helped leverage for its partner and acknowledged that Musgrave had been able to maintain and develop its linkages with Action Cancer over a very long period of time – this, they felt, was a very notable achievement in itself.

Best new product launch or re-launch

This was a tightly contested category as always, but the eventual winner was Armagh-based potato producer, Wilson’s Country.
It was in 2008 that the producer decided to re-evaluate its marketing strategy, deciding to go back to marketing basics. The company commissioned marketing research that was focused specifically on the product, its packaging and its place of purchase, price and promotion. A design house – Ask Evolution – was also appointed to propose brand development concepts that would be tuned to the findings of that market research.

Early last year, a revised format of packaging was released onto the market. In the middle of the year, a new range of seven products followed amidst PR activity and a television campaign.

TNS was employed to investigate brand performance between November 2008 and November last year. It was found that Tesco, to which Wilson’s are sole supplier in the potato category locally, had the largest potato penetration of all the multiple retailers at 78.7 per cent.

Praising Wilson’s submission, the judges said , “We think its objectives were clear and very well researched, it was clear what the marketing strategy was all about and Wilson’s have done what is very hard to do, they have taken ownership of a category very successfully.”

Best Marketing Campaign

Ulster dairy producer, Dale Farm, lifted the award in this category – the first of two on the night for the firm.
The ‘What’s Good in Life’ campaign was the subject of the submission and it was clear that the brand team had been able to identify a significant new sales driving opportunity, which was the major contributing factor in a resulting sales growth performance of 240 per cent above target.

In spite of the challenging conditions throughout 2009, with many local shoppers switching to less expensive, own brand dairy products, Dale Farm not only bucked that trend but reversed it to enjoy 12 per cent sales growth of branded products, dwarfing original growth targets of five per cent for the year.

The driving force behind that performance was this campaign, a major multi-channel brand platform. Seven out of 10 of the company’s key audience have registered the campaign and one in two of these told independent researchers that it made them more likely to buy Dale Farm products.

Using TGI data, Dale Farm points out that 87,000 ‘main shopper mums’ – the key audience – are now more likely to buy the company’s products as a direct result of the new brand campaign.

This year’s judges said that the Dale Farm strategy was “very strong and research-driven” with totally locally results: “The research uncovered a ‘eureka moment’ which they exported into their strategy and creative,” added the panel.

The only ‘Highly Commended’ certificate of the event was awarded in this category to Wilson’s Country for its promotional campaign.

Best In-Store Campaign

The winner in this category – Forest Feast – made a significant impact on this year’s judging panel. Indeed, they declared that, had there been an award for an overall winner, the Real Value campaign would have claimed it.

In reviewing Forest Feast’s fiscal performance to the end of last year, the management team identified the need for Real Value – a volume-driven mechanic with a low market retail entry point on a high demand snacking range which didn’t compromise on quality.
Consumer insight work concluded that there was a clear market opportunity to promote a snacking range which satisfied the requirement for both healthy and indulgent.

Real Value was devised as a quick-to-market mechanic to satisfy an immediate opportunity. Where consumers had previously reported being confused by the multiple positions of dried fruit, nuts and seeds, the in-store high visibility of Real Value, driven by the brand custodian and not the retailer, was considered key.

In eight months, Real Value was rolled out across three markets with phenomenal success, exceeding Year 1 forecasts by 150 per cent and accounting for five per cent of total company sales.

The judges said of the submission: “Right from the outset, the objectives of the campaign were very clear; the strategy was well thought-through, well laid-out and very creative, but the most important element was the offering and the 360 degree marketing that went behind this campaign. This is hard working marketing at its best and the return on investment was tremendous.”

Best Off-Sales Drinks Campaign

Building on the long-term success of the WKD brand and in an attempt to broaden its consumer appeal, Beverage Brands launched WKD Core, a 4.5 per cent apple cider. It was introduced to Northern Ireland in May last year.

The launch was a milestone in the 13-year history of this phenomenally successful local brand, as it was the first time that the WKD name had appeared on a non-spirit-based product since WKD Original Iron Brew was launched in 1996.

Consumer insight suggested that there was room in the cider category for a new brand, one which broke the mould and took a new approach. The strategy was to derive sales from three consumer groups – extended usage among current WDK drinkers; lapsed WKD drinkers who still liked the brand and new recruits who liked the brand’s image but didn’t drink RTDs.

A high profile marketing campaign supported Core’s arrival, including outdoor, press, digital and sponsorship. The brand is now selling well, says it producers, and retailers have reported that it has boosted their overall cider sales.

Ulster Grocer Marketing Personality of the Year Award

This is one of two new categories in this year’s award and the first to claim the title was Brian Beattie, head of marketing for Dale Farm.

The judging panel said that they felt Brian was “an excellent and professional marketer with a strong track record.” “He oversaw what we thought was the strongest marketing campaign in its category this year and it is clear that he has an inertia going here and a legacy that will ensure growth for Dale Farm going forward.” They also acknowledged Brian’s personal qualities, his dry wit and the mischievious side to his character. He was, they add, “a strong marketing personality that commanded the respect of his peers”.

Other contenders in this category this year were Elly Hunter of Tayto (NI) Ltd.; Michael Murphy of Irwins and Mark Gowdy of Fane Valley.

This is only part of a full article. For full access you can SUBSCRIBE TO ULSTER GROCER MAGAZINE

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